Social Media | Technology
The Almighty Algorithm
It Isn’t as Powerful as Instagram & TikTok Want You to Believe
You ever wonder why certain reels on Instagram or clips on TikTok go viral? You’re mindlessly scrolling through, video after video, seeing astronomical numbers of likes and views on certain posts — some of which are as basic as two mediocre 4K pictures (not even clips) with a song, under 10 seconds long. As a viewer, you may be curious thinking, “Why? I don’t get it. But ok, it’s entertaining, I guess. The algorithm knows best.”
But as a creator, such as yours truly, you’re left befuddled, having put way more work and editing into a post — hashtagging and tagging it to the max — and you can barely crack 1,000 views. Looking at some of these aforementioned viral “hits” inquiring, “How? I had pristine editing, beautiful footage, and synced it perfectly to that trending sound. I only got 300 views. This is so rigged.”
It turns out, it is rigged after all.
The almighty algorithm—which truthfully is many algorithms simultaneously functioning at once—doesn’t necessarily determine a reel’s or a Tiktok’s virality. As Forbes recently reported, after interviewing six current and former employees of TikTok, there are allegedly behind-the-scenes…
